Organic 12gal DWC w/LEDs & CFLs

Hello everyone, I am starting this thread based off of another one I have going on in the LED section. I initially started that thread because I wanted to build a few LED lamps, which I have done so now it seems natural that I start a thread here in the grow journals because that is pretty much what I have been keeping.

I do not want to go word for word what I did, just check out my LED thread because everything I have done up to this point has been laid out almost day by day.

So to catch everyone up to speed, essentially this is what I have going on.

Seeds: Bagseed I had, 90% sure Girl Scout Cookies
Nutes: Organic GoBox from General Hydroponics (I had some nay-sayers with the organic DWC, but I already ordered the nutes so that is what I am using for this round. It has proven to be more time consuming that is for sure)
DWC: 12gallon tote w/~10gal filled, 6 3" net pots filled with hydroton. Seeds started in jiffy pellets.
Air: 100 gallon pump running two 14" airstones, 80 gallon pump running 4 cylinder airstones, 25 gallon pump running 2 cylinder airstones. All topped off with a Maxi-jet 900 Powerhead.
PH: Test strips, no need for up/down yet
TDS meter for PPM readings

Rez- 66-70degrees @ ~450PPM now
Air- 70degrees @ 65%humidity

Everything was going great until the last week or so. I noticed the water was becoming stagnant with just the original 80 gallon air pump and 2 14" stones, so I added all of the extra pumps and the powerhead because I was noticing brown slime looking stuff on the roots and wanted to catch it before it became an issue. I noticed the babies weren't eating as much and the root/plant growth seemed to stop. The plant still look fine, and the roots have been improving each day (at least i think/hope) but the roots still look a little suspect to me.

This is my last post in my LED thread, let me know your thoughts!!!!

{
So I have been monitoring the rez frequently. I changed the light schedule to 12/12 yesterday and drained roughly half of the rez and wiped all of the build up that was accumulating before the powerhead was installed (this greatly helped with the build up on the sides near the top of the tub). I replaced it with balanced water and the PPMs dropped to 450, I do not want to add more nutes until some deficiencies start rearing their heads or they resume normal consumption. I also wiped down all of the tubing in the rez as well as took out my air stones and gave them a boiling water bath to clean the gunk out, which got me thinking

One airstone had some minor buildup and was producing more bubbles and a lot more evenly (I ended up shutting all pumps down for a minute and ran the 14" airstones only), the other airstone was covered in buildup and was only producing bubbles at one end. I looked at the plants most effected by the missing bubbles and sure enough the bottom side of the pot was dry, causing the root to dry out and die there. This left the bottom half of the root tangled in the start of the rootball and the top half separated and decaying. My water levels were right under the pots, there just wasn't any moisture reaching it and on top of that there is a fan blowing on top of the hydroton which I am sure dried it out faster. In the beginning of the babies life, I would pour nute solution over the hydroton daily to ensure it was moist until it hit the rez.

I have since cleaned out as many of the dead roots as possible (not a crazy amount, less than %5 roots). Have all airstones cleaned and pumping as much air as they can ( I even added the extra small pump I bought initially, So I have the 100gallon on 2-14" airstone and the 80gallon on 4 cylinder airstones and a 25 gallon on 2 cylinder airstones + powerhead) in about 10 gallons of water. The roots seem to be whitening up some more, I believe I am seeing new strong white roots. So hopefully things start to turn around! I still have not noticed any physical issues with the plants, other than they haven't seemed to grow or eat much lately.

NOW, with all of that said I want to point out that @churchhaze, you did warn me about organic dwc and after much more reading into the root and microbe/enzyme issues I have to say thank you for the fair warning lol I am for sure trying synthetic nutes next time and every time I am spending hours reading and checking up on the babies that is all I keep thinking, organic 12 gallon dwc probably not the best to jump into the deep end with.

I plan on brewing some tea shortly and plan on using @Heisenberg recipe. If anyone is having any similar issues with their rez, you should hop on over and check out his thread on his tea recipe. A lot of people were having good results, I learned a lot reading all of those pages

1.Roots after I cleaned out the dry/dead ones, how do they look to you?
2.Relatively clean after being in the bottom of the rez?
3.Gross (After adding extra pumps and powerhead the water flows a lot more now, hopefully avoiding this buildup again)


Still no update on the driver from china

}

1.Roots today
2.Powerhead I installed yesterday
3.Babies from yesterday
4.Started training them last week

I have since ordered GH Flora Micro & Bloom and plan on using the Lucas formula. I will not be using the organic nutes that I have for DWC but maybe soil, I have drained the rez and filled it back up with tap water and a couple teaspoons of 3% hydrogen peroxide. The roots have since whitened up and there is no more slimey build-up, I blame me not cleaning the rez everyday and using the organic nutes for the build-up in the first place. The plants still look healthy and are on their first week of flower, my Flora nutes will be in on Friday so hopefully they aren't deprived too long.

I have been wondering about setting up a separate tub that I have running a small pump and airstones that I would keep ph'd and temped water in, I would put clones in the top and use the water to refill my main rez. Essentially a small separate tub for clones and water, no nutes just ph'd water at temp. My goal is to have some gallons of water to refill the main rez, while being able to start some clones all while having it as low maintenance as possible. Any thoughts?

I also have ordered
(4) CXB3070 3Ks
(4) Arctic Alpine 64 Heatsink/Fan Combo
(1) Meanwell HLG-185H-C1400B driver

Will be running them in series at 144v @ 1.4A

By the time these LEDs and driver get here, I hope to have the babies in some nute solution and have some clones in rooting gel. Pop these last four LEDs in the grow room for the last 6-7 weeks of flower.

Alright so I have some updates.

I will be adding (4) cxb3070s to the cxa3070 that I currently have in the next few days. I am just waiting for the last couple pieces to complete the lamps.

I got the Flora nutes in and did a rez change/clean. I had been flushing the plants with tap water and hydrogen peroxide and it definitely helped. I went with (Grow-Micro-Bloom) 0-8-16 using the Lucas formula @ 50% strength to start. I checked the babies in the morning and they loved the new rez, there was brand new white root growth in every netpot!!! The older (maybe damaged) roots even look healthier, the roots are absolutely exploding right now. All plants still look healthy and green, they are all starting to fill out quite nicely! I will be taking clones as soon as I see signs of sex, then putting those clones back in Veg.

1. Picture of the roots a few days ago while it was being flushed
2. All of my goodies. Flora Micro/Bloom, PH control kit and rooting gel
3. They are all catching up in size, each is being trained more.
4. They are all filling out and getting larger stems, thinking it is a girl? Looks like pistils right?
5. #ROOTCITYBITCH lol seriously just looks so much better than the first picture, no?

apoulin said:

I have since ordered GH Flora Micro & Bloom and plan on using the Lucas formula. I will not be using the organic nutes that I have for DWC but maybe soil, I have drained the rez and filled it back up with tap water and a couple teaspoons of 3% hydrogen peroxide. The roots have since whitened up and there is no more slimey build-up, I blame me not cleaning the rez everyday and using the organic nutes for the build-up in the first place. The plants still look healthy and are on their first week of flower, my Flora nutes will be in on Friday so hopefully they aren't deprived too long.

I have been wondering about setting up a separate tub that I have running a small pump and airstones that I would keep ph'd and temped water in, I would put clones in the top and use the water to refill my main rez. Essentially a small separate tub for clones and water, no nutes just ph'd water at temp. My goal is to have some gallons of water to refill the main rez, while being able to start some clones all while having it as low maintenance as possible. Any thoughts?

I also have ordered
(4) CXB3070 3Ks
(4) Arctic Alpine 64 Heatsink/Fan Combo
(1) Meanwell HLG-185H-C1400B driver

Will be running them in series at 144v @ 1.4A

By the time these LEDs and driver get here, I hope to have the babies in some nute solution and have some clones in rooting gel. Pop these last four LEDs in the grow room for the last 6-7 weeks of flower.

Click to expand...

Hey I did the exact same thing as you Im growing dwc with leds and i also used organic go box with my girls and now am having the same problem so my question to you good sir is how many tea spoons of hydrogen peroxide to gal of water do i use?? I have 5 3gal buckets.

Da Red Evil said:

Hey I did the exact same thing as you Im growing dwc with leds and i also used organic go box with my girls and now am having the same problem so my question to you good sir is how many tea spoons of hydrogen peroxide to gal of water do i use?? I have 5 3gal buckets.

Click to expand...

I don't recall, I do know I ditched the organics and I cycled the water out over a few days. Removed old concentrated organic water and replaced it with fresh water. I didn't add anything after adding the fresh water, until I saw improvements. I wanted to go slow with new nutes using Lucas formula, but after removing organics from the tub my water cleaned up and roots had a ton of new healthy growth. Never again will I use organic and dwc.